Ann Hane Ryu, a graduate student in the lab of Nadav Ahituv, PhD, works with cell cultures.
The common lab practice of adding antibiotics to cell cultures to prevent contamination can actually induce genetic changes in the cells, a paper senior-authored by Nadav Ahituv, PhD, found. Ahituv is a faculty member in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, a joint department of the UCSF Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine.
Recipients of the UCSF School of Pharmacy 2017 Mary Anne Koda-Kimble Seed Award for Innovation will explore ideas ranging from possible new ways to treat obesity to new ways of accessing antibiotic-producing microbes found in soil. Five projects are being funded in this, the third round of awards since the fund was established in 2012.
Danica Galonić Fujimori, PhD, delivers the 2017 Byers Award Lecture in Basic Science. Her topic was the problem of antibiotic resistance and how research may help keep drugs effective.
Since Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1940, countless lives have been saved by antibiotics. But their effectiveness is severely compromised by the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria, accelerated by the over-prescription of antibiotics and their widespread use as growth promoters in livestock farming.
Sepsis occurs when the body responds to an infection with a mix of tissue-damaging inflammation and anti-inflammatory responses. This biological storm can lead to acute organ dysfunction (severe sepsis) and dropping blood pressure that does not respond to intravenous fluids (septic shock).
Images of P. aeruginosa biofilm—a bacterial community that takes the form of mushroom-like structures. Main/upper left image looks down at the biofilm, the lower/righthand images show cross-sections. This biofilm was cultured from the airways of a patient with cystic fibrosis.
Nearly every human bacterial infection—including some of the most serious, life threatening, and costly to treat—can take the form of a biofilm, in which bacteria aggregate into structured communities that enclose themselves within a secreted slime.
Rifkind Award Winners (clockwise from upper left) Tien Ho, PharmD; Bao Dao, PharmD, MBA; Robin Corelli, PharmD; Alicia Harvey, PharmD.
Studies of improved over-the-counter acetaminophen warning labels, more accurate measurements of antibiotics in hospitalized patients, therapies for metastatic breast cancer, and methods for training pharmacy personnel to help smokers quit took top honors at the Department of Clinical Pharmacy’s 16th Annual Spring Research Seminar.
Michael Fischbach, PhD, who studies drug-like molecules produced by human gut bacteria, has been awarded one the 16 prestigious 2011 Packard Fellowships in Science and Engineering.
The fellowship, which supports “highly creative professors early in their careers,” provides an unrestricted research grant of $875,000 over five years.
Faculty members in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, UCSF Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine, share their research on the human microbiome and microfabricated drug delivery systems and their hopes for how their science will improve the health of patients.
The bacteria in the human gut that produce antibiotics are the focus of a US$1 million W. M. Keck Foundation grant being led by Michael Fischbach, PhD, a faculty member in the UCSF School of Pharmacy.
